Last month we started a community-maintained fork of the Tildes codebase. A lot has happened since then.

The biggest change: @Bauke and I have been added as maintainers to the official Tildes repo! As a result, we're moving the community fork to the backburner for now, as we focus on nearer-term changes that will directly improve the main website. Later on it's possible we'll pick up the fork again, where it will likely serve the purpose of self-hosting your own Tildes spinoff sites.

Deimos still has the final say on what makes it to the website. Bauke and I can't deploy changes directly. However, this arrangement is still much more streamlined than before, because we now have a lot more code review bandwidth for accepting outside contributions. Deimos has less work to do now: mostly testing out the live code on a staging server, and scanning over the code for security/privacy issues—but not full code reviews which often involve a lot of back-and-forth communication and reading and testing code.

What work have we done this past month?

It's mostly been setting up foundational stuff like configuring the GitLab repository, fixing the development environment, and writing docs.

More recently we have started fixing actual website bugs too: a bug when escaping a user mention (making sure \@talklittle doesn't turn into a link), and hiding <details> content in collapsed comments. Starting small but we've found a good rhythm and will work on more and bigger issues soon.

Big props to @Bauke for setting up a staging server! Currently at https://testing.tildes.community/ — This server will be instrumental in getting new code in a testable state in a live environment, which makes it easier to approve new features before deploying on the real Tildes site.

So we shouldn't submit code to the community fork?

No, please don't. We'll use the official Tildes repo from now on. I'll update last month's post to reflect this.

Is Docker support coming to the official repo?

Yes, very likely. Deimos has warmed up to the idea. Bauke and I have been using the Docker development environment and ironed out a lot of bugs this past month.

The official repo looks the same as before?

Our next steps are to port the community fork changes back upstream to the official repo. In addition to the master branch, we plan to add staging and develop branches. develop will be where development happens, while master will reflect what is currently deployed on Tildes.net.

How do I contribute to Tildes development?

Check this document: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md

We have this big project at work...an "all hands on deck" kinda thing that has us rank-and-file frontend devs working alongside our manager more closely than I'm used to. And it was fine, because I like the guy and he's been a decent manager. But this project is killing me.

On multiple occasions now I've written code, had it pass code review (often with his approval after a round of changes/guidance), and then every few days we get these massive re-write PRs from him where he completely rewrites large chunks of what we've done. It's leaving me feeling a few different ways:

1. Angry because how quickly your code gets replaced is a (imo, bullshit) metric used as a part of our annual reviews and promotion discussions
2. Doubting myself because in my head a good developer doesn't have their code rewritten that quickly.
3. Confused because features I thought I understood are constantly being rewritten leaving me wasting time trying to relearn how things work
4. Wondering what the point of writing code is if it's just going to be thrown in the garbage later in the week?

And like I'll be the first to admit I'm not the most proficient developer on our team. React and Typescript are relatively new concepts to me, despite a long career in web development. But I've been writing with it for about a year now and I had thought I was finally getting a good grasp on things. But now I'm wondering if I'm just an idiot? Is it imposter syndrome or have I actually somehow coasted through a 15 year career across various stacks and it's just now catching up to me?

Or is this just the nature of massive projects like this? We had a half-baked product scope to begin with and its getting daily changes with entire chunks of it not very well thought out by our PM. I can see how it would make sense that the more senior developer might see the need to refactor things when things are constantly changing and we're left writing code based on assumptions and half-written requirements. I'm also getting are comments on my PRs that request changes, but mid-comment he's like "I'll just take care of this because it's blocking me".

It's just really taking a toll on my mental health and how I feel about my job. I've been trying to find another job for a few months now, but I'm not having any luck. Job hunting sucks and when you're already demoralized as hell, it's hard to sell yourself to prospective employers.

Could really use some insight from other experienced devs, please!

*Update (Feb 3, 2025): We've been added as maintainers on the official Tildes repo!

Much of the below is outdated now. Bauke and I will be helping out on the official Tildes repo instead, and the community fork is paused now.

See the new topic.

Original post below

It's happening: We're launching a community-maintained Tildes source code fork!

Link: https://gitlab.com/tildes-community/tildes-cf

@Bauke, as one of the top Tildes open source contributors, is on board as a co-maintainer, alongside myself. I hear @cfabbro is willing to help manage the issue tracker as well, continuing their long term efforts from the official repo.

Tildes' admin, @Deimos, has direct access to the repository as well. Although he is not expected to take an active role in maintaining this community fork, he will have visibility into everything going on with the fork.

Why?

Deimos has a lot going on outside of Tildes. We want to keep the Tildes codebase well maintained and remove some burden from him.

Back when he founded Tildes, Deimos was working as a fulltime unpaid volunteer on it, continuing that way for a few years. Not just code, but on everything administrative and financial; public relations, as in communicating officially inside the community and beyond; moderating the community; system administering the systems. Basically a ridiculous amount of effort for one person.

Now Tildes is a side project, and he has a day job, and there is not physically enough time for a (human, non-drug-reliant) owner to do all those things.

How will this new fork affect the Tildes website?

The hope is that Tildes can merge relevant changes back into the official upstream repository. If we implement things useful and desirable for Tildes, it should be possible to get those improvements onto the website.

Why not just add maintainers to the official repository?

There are some features that may be desirable for the community, but not relevant to Tildes itself. This includes things like a Docker development environment, which code contributors may find convenient, but are an extra maintenance burden on the official Tildes repo, as Tildes does not use Docker in any way (AFAIK).

Adding us to the official repository would also create a different dynamic, where there'd be an implicit endorsement by Deimos of all changes. This means the burden would essentially remain on the Tildes administrator to review, critique, and greenlight every single change. However, the entire point of this endeavor is that there isn't free bandwidth for that.

Also this fork opens up possibilities like making the code reusable for self-hosting entirely new websites based on the Tildes source code. While I don't personally have any specific plans regarding such, self-hosting has been a repeated request ever since Deimos open sourced Tildes years ago.

Is "Tildes Community Fork" good enough of a name?

Thanks for reading this far! The fork needs a name. It will live in the "Tildes Community" GitLab group at https://gitlab.com/tildes-community/.

For now I've simply called it "Tildes Community Fork" and put it at https://gitlab.com/tildes-community/tildes-cf.

Any better naming ideas? It's not too late to change.

Next steps: We'll start migrating GitLab issues over

I think we're ready to start copying any "low-hanging fruit" issues from the official issues to the new community fork issues. If you have an issue you think qualifies as such, especially if it was ever labeled as "Approved" in the past, please feel free to copy it to the new issue tracker. Please link back to the original too.

It's still a side project for us

Please keep in mind it's still a side project for us. Although we're excited to push the project forward, please keep expectations in check. We're doing this as volunteers. Please be polite and don't rush us!

Preface: I am familiar with Habitica. This idea would probably scratch a similar itch, but I'm also using this as an opportunity to sharpen my Rust skills.

My idea came about when I was trying to find out some new tactics to curb my alcohol consumption, which isn't quite out of control yet, but I don't want to tempt fate.

I've also really liked the progression aspect of RPGs. What if I could gamify my quest to not drink alcohol and make it sort of a fun, unique RPG experience at the same time?

In the broadest sense, it would go something like this:

• You open the game up, ideally each day. You are instantly prompted: "Did you drink yesterday?" (and perhaps it will go back a few more days if you skipped).
• For each day you answer "no", you are rewarded with some sort of tokens, credits, etc. -- currency to play the game. If you answer "yes", maybe you get penalized somehow.
• Then, you pick up your journey, which is sort of a standard RPG experience -- fighting battles, buying gear, learning spells, leveling up, advancing through the world, you name it.
• The game should get progressively more difficult, but should not have an ending, as "quitting alcohol" does not have an ending either. At the same time, it should scratch the RPG progression itch.

The initial game concept I came up with is just one that I see as the quickest way to get this off the ground, which would be something CLI-based, where you are presented with a menu ("visit shop, enter arena, view equipment" etc.). You spend battle tokens to enter into arena battles, which reward experience points, money, and gear. You level up, work towards a build (there needs to be a way to respec because restarting isn't really an option), and progress through the arena.

In total, you would probably spend less than 5 minutes every day playing the game, which is by design. It should be an every day habit. But, there should be enough entertainment value that, if I'm not getting those sweet battle tokens by not drinking, I'm missing out on experiencing the game (or, I could lie, which defeats the purpose of the app).

So that's where I'm at right now. I'm really interested to hear your thoughts, ideas, critiques, etc. before I spend a free weekend building out a concept.

Some questions in particular:

• I was leaning toward just building this in CLI because it will be extremely simple. It could just be a matter of STDINs. However, I'm open to other Rust-based options. Is there a good Rust UI toolkit or web framework that is worth looking into that would make this a little more modern?
• What about game features? What could make this a really fun experience, while also balancing the whole concept of being built around your life and your habits?

In the end, this is a deeply personal project that would be built, first and foremost, for my specific needs. But that's not to say I couldn't build it with some scalability in mind. Rather than asking about alcohol, perhaps the "habits" can be customized, and so forth.

Anyway, have a great weekend!

So, got a new job. That's great. Pay bump, more / new responsibilities and all that jazz. It took until my first day on the job for it to like, REALLY sink in that it's my first job managing people. I want to be good at this, or at the very least, competent. I'm responsible for my team and I don't want to let them down. I'm already looking things up online, talking to my parents, friends in similar positions for more information, and figured it would be good to ask around on here.

I guess the other half of this is that I've gone from looking at code in the IDE to now being more responsible for higher level architectural decisions. Possibly company steering decisions. Not used to that yet either, or at least the feeling. I feel under-prepared, and am possibly verging on overwhelmed. Lots of new things happening at once here, also writing this to unpack it as I type it out.

What advice do you have for me? Anything that you've learned while in a managerial role that you haven't gotten to share? Tips and Tricks? Prayers? 🤣